The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm eBook

“You hear that, Zara? You must be very
careful. Don’t go out alone, and if anyone
tries to speak to you, no matter what they tell you,
you pay no attention to them. If they keep on
bothering you, speak to a policeman, if there’s
one around, and say that you want him to stop them
from bothering you.”

“Good idea,” said Charlie Jamieson.
“And if you do have to speak to a policeman,
you mention my name. They all know me, and I guess
most of them like me well enough to do any little
favor for a friend of mine.”

Then Jamieson turned to Bessie.

“We’ve got to think about your case, too,”
he said. “Miss Mercer tells me that you
don’t know what’s become of your father
and mother. Just what do you know about them?”

“Not very much,” said Bessie, bravely,
although the disappearance of her parents always weighed
heavily on her mind. “When I was a little
bit of a girl they left me with the Hoovers, at Hedgeville,
and I lived with them after that. Maw Hoover
said they promised to come back for me, and to pay
her board for looking after me until they came, and
that they did pay the board for a while. But
then they stopped writing altogether, and no one has
heard from them for years.”

“H’m! Where did the last letter they
wrote come from?”

“San Francisco. I’ve heard Maw Hoover
say that, often. But that was years and years
ago.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing, anyhow.
You see, the Hoovers wouldn’t have known how
to start looking for them, even if they’d been
particularly anxious to do it.”

“And I don’t believe they were,”
said Eleanor Mercer, indignantly. “They
treated her shamefully, Charlie—­made her
work like a hired girl, and never paid her for it,
at all. Instead, they acted, or the woman did,
anyhow, just as if they were giving her charity in
letting her stay there. Wasn’t that an
outrage?”

“Lots of people act as if they were being charitable
when they get a good deal more than they give,”
said the lawyer dryly.

“Maw Hoover was always calling me lazy, and
saying she’d send me to the poor-farm,”
said Bessie. “But it was she and Jake that
made things so hard. Paw Hoover was always good
to me, and he helped me to get away, too.”

“That’s what I’m driving at,”
said Jamieson. “You had a right to go whenever
you liked, if they hadn’t adopted you, or anything
like that. Really, all you were in their place
was a servant who wasn’t getting paid.”

“I knew she had a right to go,” said Eleanor.
“That’s why I helped her, of course.”

“Then we’re all right. If she’d
really run away from someone who had a right to keep
her, it would be harder. I might be able to prove
that they weren’t fit guardians, but that’s
always hard, and it’s a good thing we don’t
need to do it. Hullo, what’s the matter
now?”

“Look!” said Zara, who had risen, and
was looking keenly at a figure across the street.
“See, Bessie, don’t you know who that is,
even in those clothes?”